


один

by nakanti



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 13:54:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12212610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nakanti/pseuds/nakanti





	один

Longing. Longing had always been thin skin stretched too tightly over bones, a mess of dirty blonde hair that never seemed to be able to sit in place for long. The clean, sterile smell of chronic sickness trying to be kept at bay. Knobby knees and broken knuckles and bruised flesh.

Longing was heartbeats skipped and breath caught in lungs. Shared side looks over the tops of shot glasses. Warmth from arms after nightmares. Gunfire and explosions. Muffled grunts and moans between sheets in a shared tent, the creaking of military cots and soft, promising words.

Longing is sharp, cold. Faded memories, fragments. Pain. Humility. Anger.

Longing was always so sharp, so bitter. So cold.

-

Rusted. The soft brown red of metal left wet and air dried. Old. Sharp. Dangerous. Exposed and expired.

Rusted memories, frayed nerves. 

Cold metal left again and again to freeze and to thaw and to destroy.

And to rust.

-

Daybreak. The sharp, cold inhale of stale air that tasted like the world's best treat. Bitter, yet delicious. Vitals. Lights. Missions and words from a little red book. 

Pain, unbelievable and unbearable pain. Hatred. One track mind. Daybreak meant missions, missions meant somehow, someway being alive. Daybreak meant inevitable death. Daybreak meant escaping the cold, if only for a bit. Daybreak was being locked in a cage the size of the world.

-

Furnace. Warmth. Light. Safety.

Arms too big, bigger than memories. Soft, hesitant touches. Warmth between sheets. Sweat. Breathless and full of emotion.

Escape from the cold, and not just physically.

-

Benign. Benign was a fleeting memory, a hope so cherished and locked away deep inside, deeper than anything could ever touch. Benign was unattainable. Unrealistic. Unreachable. Unreal.

-

Seventeen. A fragile age, a fragile time. Selling bonds for bullets and scrapping metal for war. Drunken nights spent on streets. Foul feelings in stomachs to be shipped off across the sea like a heard of cattle. 

Seventeen was a sick invincibility.

-

Nine. Nine was time spent in quick progression, surrounded by warm bodies. Curses. Cheerful shouting. Alcohol, stiff and sterile. Gunfire. Screams. Agony, mentally and physically. 

Nine months, days counting down. Nine months of intense fear and longing. Pain. Longing for a mop of dirty blonde and piercing blues. Nine months spent on the front lines, unaware of struggles at home. 

Nine was the coldest number.

-

Homecoming. Baby blues and a body too large for memory at the first daybreak. Intense passion burning a fever too bright. Not a physical home, but the only safe place in all of the universes. Anger and betrayal. Relief against an old, raging sickness. Warmth and love and passion and aggression. 

Nothing else had ever meant home.

-

One.

It was always him, always.

The only one.

-

Freight car. The end of life and the start of cold. So bitter and so desperately cold. Pain and falling free for far too long. White and a calming, comfortable heat. Red, bright red. Stark white against snow. Numbness. Nothing. Then pain, searing and bone deep. Cold metal. Fragments of memory. Foreign languages and strange men who came always, always bringing harm and more pain. 

Comfort in consistency. Comfort in pain. 

Always rusted, always cold. Daybreak and never again a chance at warmth. Never again a chance for safety. Always hyperaware and unsettled.

-

And still, there was one. Always kept secret, lock and key beneath grey matter and flesh. Memories were lost, but this could never be taken away. It was a belonging. A constant and secret ache, deeper than any other pain. A fear. A need. A longing. A name. A mission.

The mission.

Steve.


End file.
